written by Pietro
February 28th, 2025
Ciao!
My name is Pietro, and some of you will have seen me on Sundays at Grønt Marked from behind our plancha, serving meals that we cook using amazing ingredients from our producers. I cook because I like to eat, and I developed a passion for food back home in Italy, where travelling around the “Boot” allowed me to explore the rainbow-coloured façade of every region, shaping Italy into a puzzle of different cultures, ingredients, and eating habits.
Every region differs from the other as much as Denmark is different from Germany or Poland, and Italians are indeed connected by a very thin red line. Most of these distinctions come to light when we talk about food. Yes, we all eat pasta, but in Sicily, we eat pasta in a different way as we do in Piedmont – from its shape to the accompanying condiments, to the ingredients. You write “pasta,” but you read it as agnolotti, lasagna, or carbonara. And this is just me talking about pasta – expand this vision to everything else, from bread to cakes and so on.
Last week, I had the opportunity to travel to Rome for three days with the Grønt Marked crew for a project that connects different markets from around Europe to raise awareness of what a market can do for the community – as well as to share precious information with people from other countries who are working towards the same goals.
The excitement that my belly and I feel when we hear that we are going to Rome is immeasurable. Going there means dipping into a pot of food at any time of day and behind every corner. There is no breakfast, lunch, or dinner – just a constant need to try what that forno (bakeries that cook pizza slices, fried balls of rice (supplì), or pastry) has in the counter. Or to sit in a a fifth-generation family-run osteria that cooks the best carbonara in the city.
Besides the food, Rome is just shining with beauty everywhere, so the not-so-efficient public transportation I experienced on this trip was compensated for by long walks that became pilgrimages to places where I knew I had to eat.
One particular two-hour route was enriched with stops at spice shops, botteghe (shops), markets, museums (for every taste), gardens, or other places where you must try that pizza, that supplì, or maybe an ice cream.
You will walk through these markets where people talk, gather, yell, taste, buy, negotiate and drink an espresso together. You may hear an old woman loud and clear calling out to one of the farmers behind a stand: “Anna! Friday, the artichokes! I want them beautiful and crunchy!”
Or you might stop at a bakery where the baker knows what every single regular will order: “One slice of rossa (the pizza) and one loaf, Signora Lucia?”
That leaves the evening, which is for sitting and gathering at a table – maybe in a pizzeria that has served the same pizza to 350 people every night for the last 50 years, or a little house dressed as a trattoria where ‘grandma’ is cooking cacio e pepe or roasted lamb exactly as her grandma showed her years before.
The community is built around these realities. Where the fuel that keeps everything running is food, where the gigantic dimension of a city – with people from Rome’s north unaware about what’s going on in the south – become tiny and small.
You go to the market, to the bar that serves maritozzi (buns with whipped cream inside), or to the forno because you feel part of a community – something that can seem impossible in one of the biggest towns in the world.
GRØNT MARKED
Article: A trip to Rome
written by Pietro
February 28th, 2025
Ciao!
My name is Pietro, and some of you will have seen me on Sundays at Grønt Marked from behind our plancha, serving meals that we cook using amazing ingredients from our producers. I cook because I like to eat, and I developed a passion for food back home in Italy, where travelling around the “Boot” allowed me to explore the rainbow-coloured façade of every region, shaping Italy into a puzzle of different cultures, ingredients, and eating habits.
Every region differs from the other as much as Denmark is different from Germany or Poland, and Italians are indeed connected by a very thin red line. Most of these distinctions come to light when we talk about food. Yes, we all eat pasta, but in Sicily, we eat pasta in a different way as we do in Piedmont – from its shape to the accompanying condiments, to the ingredients. You write “pasta,” but you read it as agnolotti, lasagna, or carbonara. And this is just me talking about pasta – expand this vision to everything else, from bread to cakes and so on.
Last week, I had the opportunity to travel to Rome for three days with the Grønt Marked crew for a project that connects different markets from around Europe to raise awareness of what a market can do for the community – as well as to share precious information with people from other countries who are working towards the same goals.
The excitement that my belly and I feel when we hear that we are going to Rome is immeasurable. Going there means dipping into a pot of food at any time of day and behind every corner. There is no breakfast, lunch, or dinner – just a constant need to try what that forno (bakeries that cook pizza slices, fried balls of rice (supplì), or pastry) has in the counter. Or to sit in a a fifth-generation family-run osteria that cooks the best carbonara in the city.
Besides the food, Rome is just shining with beauty everywhere, so the not-so-efficient public transportation I experienced on this trip was compensated for by long walks that became pilgrimages to places where I knew I had to eat.
One particular two-hour route was enriched with stops at spice shops, botteghe (shops), markets, museums (for every taste), gardens, or other places where you must try that pizza, that supplì, or maybe an ice cream.
You will walk through these markets where people talk, gather, yell, taste, buy, negotiate and drink an espresso together. You may hear an old woman loud and clear calling out to one of the farmers behind a stand: “Anna! Friday, the artichokes! I want them beautiful and crunchy!”
Or you might stop at a bakery where the baker knows what every single regular will order: “One slice of rossa (the pizza) and one loaf, Signora Lucia?”
That leaves the evening, which is for sitting and gathering at a table – maybe in a pizzeria that has served the same pizza to 350 people every night for the last 50 years, or a little house dressed as a trattoria where ‘grandma’ is cooking cacio e pepe or roasted lamb exactly as her grandma showed her years before.
The community is built around these realities. Where the fuel that keeps everything running is food, where the gigantic dimension of a city – with people from Rome’s north unaware about what’s going on in the south – become tiny and small.
You go to the market, to the bar that serves maritozzi (buns with whipped cream inside), or to the forno because you feel part of a community – something that can seem impossible in one of the biggest towns in the world.